Survival Of The Tannest

Pale Skin Is Bigger Fear Than Cancer, Teens Say

July 06, 1992|By LISA DANIELS Daily Press

A suntan isn't just a suntan to 19-year-old Jennifer Weyforth. It's a matter of life or death, she says, not realizing how right she is.

"It's not just survival of the fittest, it's like survival of the tannest these days," she said as she sprawled out on a towel at Hampton's Buckroe Beach in the middle of a recent weekday, a bottle of oily tanning accelerator nearby.

Despite repeated warnings from doctors that too much exposure to sunlight may cause skin cancer, many of Virginia's youth still worship the sun. Though Weyforth's heard all that, she and her friends insist that getting a tan remains one of their major goals this summer.

Weyforth prides herself on her commitment to get a tan. She even skipped an American literature class at Germanna Community College one day recently so she could drive to the Peninsula to sunbathe on the beach.

"I wish it was beating down sun so I could scorch," said the bikini-clad Fredericksburg resident, frowning as she looked up at the overcast sky.

"I really don't worry about the sun because I think it's more important what you look like," said 22-year-old Newport News resident Sharon Zaccagni as she lounged next to Weyforth. "There is so much to worry about these days, you can't worry about everything."

The American Academy of Dermatology says sun-worshipers may have plenty to worry about if they don't exercise caution in the sun - particularly when they're young.

Researchers have dire words for children and teen-agers, many of whom feel immune because of their age. But, according to dermatologists, most skin damage caused by the sun takes place before age 20.

The academy estimates that this year nearly 7,000 people will die from malignant melanoma, the most lethal form of skin cancer. One in six Americans will develop some sort of skin cancer during their lives.

Still, many Peninsula teen-agers shrug off the warnings, shunning the shade to sap up sunlight.

"It's my goal to get really dark this summer," said Troy Gills, a 17-year-old Bethel High School senior. He stood shirtless, midday sun high overhead, at Buckroe Beach after playing volleyball.

"They tell me to use sunblock sometimes but I never do," said Michael Williams, 13.

The 8th-grader at Newport News' Huntington Middle School was looking a little red on the shoulders after spending an afternoon at Buckroe.

Vanity - and the opposite sex - reign as the predominant reasons many young people tan.

"You don't look as plain, you don't look as dull," said Ferguson High School 10th-grader Deanna Swall, 14, while sunbathing in a bikini at Newport News' Glendale pool.

"It makes you feel good, then you can look at people who don't have a tan and say `Wow,' they're really white,'" added 15-year-old Ferguson High School 10th-grader Amber Parr.

Meg Bartelt, a 16-year-old junior at Menchville High School and a part-time lifeguard at Glendale, wouldn't mind that kind of teasing. After slathering on some heavy-duty sunblock, she donned a hat, T-shirt and sunglasses - before positioning an umbrella overhead while sitting in her lifeguard chair.

"I'm probably the only teen-ager I know who comes here and puts sunblock on," Bartelt said as she looked around at dozens of youngsters playing and lazing in the early afternoon sun.